Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:17 pm on 20 September 2022.
Great. Thank you very much, Russell. I think I need to be absolutely clear that we have given very clear guidance to NHS boards that actually the winter planning has to be done early. So, we've asked them to do it as part of their normal planning, because if you leave it until now it's too late; you already need things in place. So, we've given them the money, they needed to build that into their programme. Their integrated medium-term plans have all considered what next winter will look like. And of course we've already given, for example, £25 million to roll out the six priorities for emergency and urgent care. So, all of that's gone, because if we'd waited until now, as you said, it would have been difficult for us to have rolled things out. So, they've known what was coming, we've given them very clear guidance in terms of what we expect as a result of that.
We still have a lot of issues in relation to delayed transfers of care. So, that is probably one of my biggest headaches at the moment: how do we get people out of hospitals when they are ready to be discharged, because there is considerable pressure because of those issues in building that community care capacity. So, we've got an initiative that the NHS has been working on with local government over the whole of the summer, where we're building that community care capacity. I can give you a bit more detail on that at a later date, but those are very advanced programmes, very detailed, and people have been working on that intensively over the summer.
In terms of hospital capacity, I'm very clear that I don't want a let-up in relation to planned care, which is why I have been asking, for example, in relation to orthopaedics, that we have reserved beds, because there is always going to be pressure. The pressure is not going to go away, but we need to get through those waiting lists. And when it comes to digital, I can assure you that this is one of the issues that is very much at the top of my agenda. I have almost weekly meetings on the various aspects of digital that we need to use to transform the way we deliver services in Wales. And there'll be some interesting news for you on the NHS app very shortly. So, I'm hoping that we won't have to cancel too many routine procedures this winter, but of course it does depend on what that wave may or may not look like. Staff sickness is obviously something we're very concerned about, which is why getting those rates down significantly lower than the rest of the four nations is a good place to be, but we know it's an undulating pattern, so we've got to keep an eye on that.
In terms of increasing capacity in the NHS workforce, you will be aware, Russell, that we have already undertaken significant recruitment during the pandemic. When it comes to the ambulance service, for example, over the past couple of years we've recruited at least another 200. There are going to be some changes to the ambulance roster soon, which is going to release an equivalent of about 72 additional people. So, I'm confident we've got a very clear plan in terms of what we need to do in relation to urgent and emergency care.
So, in terms of winter planning, then, we've set out a framework that sets out our expectations for health boards to work with partners to build on that six-goals programme, and some of those priorities include a national communications campaign to raise awareness of NHS 111, to optimise the role of the third-sector services, to recruit 100 new ambulance clinicians, and to make sure that we are reducing those long ambulance handover delays, because we know that if that pressure is heavy now, it's going to get more difficult later. Fixing that now is critical to us. So, building that community care capacity still remains very much at the top of my agenda.